Word.ws English Dictionary

duck tape

duck tape noun: a kind of tape made from, or incorporating, cotton duck (type of fabric).

duck tape: a kind of tape made from, or incorporating, cotton duck (type of fabric)
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Noun

duck tape (countable and uncountable, plural duck tapes)

  1. (historical) A kind of tape made from, or incorporating, cotton duck (type of fabric).
    • In belting from the motor, connect to as large a pulley as possible and practical, and use a heavy duck tape, one inch wide, such as printers use on their large presses.1894, The Electrical World, volume 24
  2. (also, trademark) A type of multi-purpose heavy-duty adhesive tape.
    • If you can't fix it with duck tape, it's not worth fixing.

Synonyms of duck tape

Forms of duck tape

pluralduck tapes

Origin of duck tape

Originally (from late 19th century) from duck (“a tightly woven fabric”) + tape, due to the make-up of the tape. The adhesive tape now commonly known as "Duck tape" (a trademark in the United States) has its origins in a product first created for the US military during World War II,https://www.duckbrand.com/about and the word "duck" was later associated with the waterproof qualities of this tape, as in the idea of "water off a duck's back".https://web.archive.org/web/20110824095810/http://www.octanecreative.com/ducttape/duckvsduct.html The terms "duck tape" and "duct tape" overlap in modern usage. According to one theory, the modern product was originally called "duck tape". The term "duct tape" was then later applied because of mishearing and/or because the product was used to join together pieces of duct-work. However, this chronology has been questioned due to lack of documented evidence that "duck tape" predates "duct tape" as a name for the modern product.http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/03/14/tale_of_the_tape/ The Duck Brand website itself refers to "Duck Tape® Brand Duct Tape",https://www.duckbrand.com/products/duck-tape using "Duck tape" as the...

Questions about duck tape

What does duck tape mean?
Duck tape means a kind of tape made from, or incorporating, cotton duck (type of fabric).
What part of speech is duck tape?
Duck tape is a noun.
What is the plural of duck tape?
The plural of duck tape is duck tapes.

Words near duck tape in the dictionary

  1. duck snorts
  2. duck soup
  3. duck soups
  4. duck stamp
  5. duck stamps
  6. duck tape
  7. duck tapes
  8. duck test
  9. duck tests
  10. duck tour
  11. duck tours

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: duck tape (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-duck tape.wav.

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